Thrifty Thursday: Start Your Engines!

Start your engines!

I love how Disney is upgrading their ride lines. Remember how fun it was to walk into the line of Space Mountain to realize they had added the interactive gaming? It doesn’t solve the annoyance of waiting in a 120+ minute line, but it sure does ease the blow! The last thing we want after spending our hard earned dollars to be in WDW is to be bored waiting to ride an attraction. While we, as adults, can handle it with some dignity…the younger set of our parties may or may not appreciate it;)

On our recent trip to WDW we were lucky enough to try out the new Test Track by Chevrolet. This attraction underwent an 8 month face lift, and the upgrades are seriously awesome. The best part? For no extra cost you can build and “test” your own vehicle!

Disney made the experience of waiting in line so much more exciting on this attraction. You move through the line stages. The first part of the line is like any other Disney queue. You weave through some aisles while watching the design process of some seriously awesome cars. This serves, I think, as some inspiration to the next stage. Here you can actually design your own vehicle! You are ushered into a room with rows of computers and using a touch screen with a bazillion different options (stye, color, efficiency, power, etc) you design a car that you can actually “test” during the ride. The time to create your vehicle varies on how crowded it is, but we had about 8 minutes to design our cars. Then you swipe a key (RFID) card to save your car and you hang on to this during the next part of the wait. After designing your car you wait again in a series of rooms before being ushered into the loading zone.

We found the different waiting “zones” broke up the wait nicely. When you arrive at the boarding part of the ride, you swipe your RFID cars on the new Mickey electronic RFID machine and that loads your personal designs into the car you will ride in. When you get into the ride car to ride the “Sim Track,” you will see your car pop up on the screen. The ride is a mixture of old and new, in a good way! Your sim car will be taken through a test to see how it measures up, in a lot of the ways we all loved with the old Test Track, finishing up with that awesome acceleration test at the end!

After the ride is almost just as fun. You will get to see how your personal vehicle design performed in the test run, compared to everyone else’s in your party and overall. There are a lot of fun and free interactive attractions in the “post show” where you can race your car, create a commercial featuring your car, and much more. It’s SO fun! You could spend hours on this attraction!

Overall we were so impressed with the upgraded Test Track. Such a good bang for our buck!

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Tina works full time as a school counselor in an elementary school. She lives close to Baltimore, MD with her husband Dave and her 13 year old stepdaughter, Ashley. They also have a furry family member, a cat name Frodo, that keeps life interesting in their house! Tina began visiting Disney World as a child with her family, and now her, Dave & Ashley take a trip to the World every year. She considers herself a Disney “fanatic” and once her family is finished one trip, she is already planning their next one. Tina loves to find the best deals, even in the busy seasons (she can only go when schools are off!) and loves sharing those deals & tips with anyone and everyone! What Tina loves most is the magic of WDW, it makes her feel like a kid again. She hopes that every family has the opportunity go to the World and experience the magic for themselves because it has a way of reminding its visitors that dreams do indeed come true! Read more of Tina’s work on her blog A Not So Bland Life, where she writes about home decor, cooking, couponing, traveling, and and of course, Disney!